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Washington, D.C., May 17th – Congressman Jim Moran, Northern Virginia Democrat, succeeded in amending the FY’08 Defense Authorization bill (H.R. 1585) to require the Secretary of Defense to prepare a plan to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo. The amendment passed by a 220-208 vote.
“Guantanamo is a stain on our reputation as a nation -- governed by the rule of law -- that respects justice and democracy,” said Moran. “By keeping Gitmo open, we are providing a recruiting tool for extremists bent on doing us harm. Our values and ideals are what will win the global war on terror, not military might. We undermine those ideals by what is taking place at Guantanamo.”
“In order to close Guantanamo, we need to have a plan for what to do with the detainees being held there. This amendment requires the Defense Department to devise a solution to that problem for the Congress to consider.”
Under the amendment, no less than 60 days after the bill is signed into law, the Secretary of Defense is required to submit to Congress a report containing a plan for the transfer of each individual presently detained at Guantanamo. It also requires the Defense Department to identify how many detainees they are planning to charge with a crime, transfer to their country of origin and continue to detain for the near future.
Further, the report requests the Secretary of Defense to identify actions that would need to be taken by agency heads and Congress to ensure that detainees subject to be released or transferred from Guantanamo are, in fact, released or transferred.
The Senate is preparing to act on their version of the FY’08 Defense Authorization bill next month.
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